Google To Honor "Don't-Track-Me-Bro" Requests

theodp writes "Someday soon, Google will allow owners of Wi-Fi access points to opt out of a Google service that uses their data to determine the location of others' smartphones. The opt-out service will be available globally, although it was created at the instigation of European privacy regulators, Google Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer explained in a blog post."

Comments

Opting out of Geolocation

[billstewart]

The service Google is talking about here tracks the physical location of Wifi hubs by SSID, and because of regulatory pressure they're letting the Wifi hub users opt out. But how are they going to do that? Let anybody fill out a web form saying "SSID '12345678' is mine" and opt out? (Or at least implement some minimal security by requiring you to also provide the street address, so they can validate that you know where that SSID is, though you could still forge an opt-out for your local Starbucks?)

One thing they don't talk about is whether they're tracking anything by IP address, or just by SSID. I'd really like to tell them not to track anything from my Wifi Access Point's IP address :-)

Meanwhile, I'm the owner of "linksys" - please opt me out!

Re:"Bro"

[AliasMarlowe]

wtf @ title

I take it the word "Bro" has you confused. It's quite simple, Google will not track members of the 1st Infantry Division (United_States) or members of the Border Roads Organization, especially if said members are wearing a male bra while in a particular town in Sweden. Is it clear enough now?

How does one opt-out

[Stan92057]

How does one opt-out of something they have no idea they belong too? And didnt Google say the data they collected was by accident?